THE DA WN OF MIND 189 



vertebrate types, or the forms of words where 

 wisdom lay entombed, the structures became simpler 

 and simpler, cruder and cruder, less full of the 

 richness and abundance of life as we near the birth 

 of time. They tell of days when the world was 

 very young, when plants were flowerless and animals 

 backboneless, of later years when primeval Man 

 prowled the forest and chipped his flints and 

 chattered in uncouth syllables of battle and the 

 chase. No words entered at that time into human 

 speech except those relating to the activities, few 

 and monotonous, of an almost animal lot. These 

 were the days of the protoplasm of speech. There 

 was no differentiation between verbs or adverbs, 

 nouns or adjectives. The sentence as yet was not ; 

 each word was a sentence. There was no gram- 

 matical inflection but the inflection of the voice ; 

 the moods of the verb were uttered by intonation 

 or grimace. The pronouns "him" and "you" were 

 made by pointing at him and you. Man had even 

 no word for himself, for he had not yet discovered 

 himself. This fact, when duly considered, raises 

 the witness of Language to the Ascent of Mind to 

 an almost unique importance. Nothing more sig- 

 nificant could be said as to Man's mental past 

 than that there was a time when he was scarcely 

 conscious of himself, as a self. He knew himself, 



